Sportswear becomes tourniquets at site of Boston explosions

Marathon Monday is typically one of the biggest sales days of the year at Marathon Sports, located at the foot of the Boston Marathon's finish line on Boylston Street.

Within minutes of Monday's explosions, however, the shoe and apparel store quickly shifted into a sort of triage center, with customers - many of whom had recently completed the 26.2-mile run - rushing out to help out anyone they could.

"To see how many people jumped in to help out ... they had already run 26 miles, yet they had the strength to go out and rush to help people," said Shane O'Hara, the store's manager. "And no one even knew what the heck was going on. Police were saying get out of here, but they were rushing to help people out."

O'Hara said he was still "just in shock, shaken" as he drove back to his Raynham, Mass., home on Monday night and didn't want to go into too much detail about the injuries he witnessed. He did note that store employees and customers were taking apparel off the racks to use as makeshift tourniquets for those who were hurt.

The first explosion occurred about 10 feet from a corral set up for marathon viewers on the sidewalk, right outside the store. O'Hara was inside with a customer when he heard the blast.

"When the explosion happened, everyone in the store was like, 'What was that?' then smoke started coming in," he recalled. "People were running out to get people to come into the store. Then we heard another one, and all craziness broke out."

And while the acts of those helping others helped rekindle O'Hara's faith in the human spirit in the midst of the tragedy, he was still nearly at a loss for words for what happened right outside his store on Monday afternoon.

"I can't believe what happened," O'Hara said. "I'm heartbroken for the people whose lives were affected by this tragedy."